Reisman v. Sanskar, L.L.C.

Citations

• 2025 Ohio 5203

Syllabus

AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE – ATTORNEY FEES – FINAL APPEALABLE ORDER – INDEPENDENT REVIEW – LANDLORD – PERSONAL JURISDICTION – SERVICE OF PROCESS – SMALL CLAIMS COURT – TENANT – WAIVER: The trial court properly obtained personal jurisdiction over plaintiff on defendant's amended counterclaim where plaintiff failed to raise the issue of insufficient service of process of defendant's amended counterclaim by motion or by responsive pleading and where he fully participated in the litigation, effectively waiving the affirmative defense of insufficient service of process. The trial court properly considered the merits of defendant's amended counterclaim, even though defendant filed it after 28 days, because the procedural rules in small claims court are somewhat relaxed to accommodate pro se litigants. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by failing to explain its reasoning for adopting the magistrate's decisions because it was not required to do so in order to perform a proper independent review of objected-to matters. The trial court's judgments comported with the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure, and this court has proper jurisdiction because the time to appeal the final order did not begin to run until the trial court properly ruled on plaintiff's second set of objections.